As of today, free skype out to Canada & US

Wed May 17 14:12:44 UTC 2006

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The thing about all of these communication tools is that they're  
inherently  dependant on the network effect. The value of belonging  
to the network is (roughly) a function of the size of the network.  
Email was a novelty of academia until my boss started using it. Then  
it became a business tool. Now that my Mom's using email, it has  
permeated daily life.

I think this is an incredibly clever move on the part of Skype. By  
providing free dialouts, they allow all the users of their network to  
instantly leverage the POTS network. I think that this will actually  
_increase_ the value of their system. From a marketing perspective,  
being able to say "free long distance" is brilliant. Their dial-out  
rates were already cheap to the point of being practically free, but  
nobody pays attention to "cheap long distance" anymore since cheap  
has become a weasel word.

Personally, the effect that I've observed for this is that both my  
Mom and Sister have signed up and bought Skype credit. That appears  
to be necessary to enable SkypeOut. I could be wrong, but either way  
it seems right to put a little bit of money their way for the  
service, and a one-time $14CDN payment for unlimited long-distance  
seems a good bargain. Neither of them is particularly technologically  
adept, but they've both decided to use Skype for all their long- 
distance calls from now on.

I prefer open standards, and quite admire the IAX protocol from a  
technological stance. I can't help but hope that the Skype guys will  
eventually figure out that it's better to be a major (and early)  
player in a massive open market than a monopolist in a small closed  
market. Particularly in the communications field, where the value of  
a market is so heavily dependant on it's size.

__________________________________________________
Andrew Hammond    416-673-4138    ahammond-swQf4SbcV9C7WVzo/KQ3Mw at public.gmane.org
DBA, Afilias Canada Corp. Ltd.
CB83 2838 4B67 D40F D086 3568 81FC E7E5 27AF 4A9A

On 17-May-06, at 08:16, Brandon Sandrowicz wrote:

> With respect to Google, they've been doing a good job of keeping  
> GTalk pretty open.  While the client itself isn't open, the  
> protocol is just Jabbar/XMPP, and the protocol they bought for  
> voice communications has source available (Berkley-style license)  
> and the ability to use it (http://code.google.com/apis/talk/ 
> index.html).  They also plan to support SIP in the future.  The  
> only 'bad' part about GTalk is that the login connects to all other  
> Google services, and there are privacy concerns to some extent.  So  
> even if they never support SIP, it's not like another SIP-based  
> client couldn't add XMPP and libjingle support to interoperate with  
> GTalk, unlike Skype.
>
> "4. Do you plan to support other real-time communication protocols?
> Google Talk supports XMPP with the beta release. We plan to support  
> SIP in a future release. Additionally, we will evaluate other  
> protocols as appropriate, to continue to deliver on our commitment  
> to open communications."
>
> 5. What protocols are used for voice calls?
>
> Google Talk uses extensions to XMPP for voice signaling and peer-to- 
> peer communication. Source code and documentation for these  
> extensions is now available.
>
> In addition, these extensions are in the process of being reviewed  
> by the XMPP standards body as official enhancements (known as JEPs)  
> to the standard. Note that the source code for Google Talk's  
> current implementation of these extensions varies slightly from the  
> proposed specs. Upon ratification of the specs, Google Talk (and  
> the source code) will be updated to be in full compliance.
>
> In the future, we plan to support SIP signaling as well."
>
>
> On May 17, 2006, at 2:04 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
>
>> | From: Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org>
>>
>> | At least until skype has killed all competitors.
>>
>> Right.  Skype uses proprietary protocols as I understand it.
>>
>> It is much better for the consumer if open standards win.  Like SIP.
>> Or IAX (not as widely adopted, but sufficiently open, I think).
>>
>> Most VoIP companies use SIP.  But some want to capture their
>> customers.  Vonnage has tie-ins that use locked hardware -- the only
>> kind you can get in mass-market stores.  I don't know what Google is
>> doing.
>>
>> I've some experience with untied SIP.  Not too expensive and much
>> healthier.  (I use Unlimitel.ca's a la carte products.)
>> --
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>
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TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
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